Well, it’s January. If you’re a travel hockey parent you know this means there isn’t a whole time of time for more leisurely, creative pursuits. Especially when you have more than one kid playing. So what do you do if one of your creative outlets is photography? You shoot hockey games, of course.

Shooting hockey, however, presents many, many challenges:

1)Often the ice rinks have poor lighting. Not poor as in ‘I can’t see what is going on on the ice’. Poor as in there is just not enough light to get a proper exposure at a fast enough shutter speed to get pictures that aren’t completely blurred. So how do you work around that? If you can afford it you buy a fast zoom lens. However, fixed f/2.8 zooms are very expensive (also generally big and heavy). I currently do not own one so if shooting from the stands I use my variable aperture f/4-5.6 70-300mm lens. Compared to a f/2.8 lens I’m losing two stops of light when zoomed out to long end, which is often the case. If you’re in the same boat as me that means you have to pump up the ISO. I always shoot in aperture priority with the largest aperture possible. I then pump up the ISO to where I have a fast enough shutter speed to handhold at the longest zoom range without camera shake. Since hockey is a fast game you also want a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. I usually try to keep it to at least 1/500 of a second. As a result I often find myself shooting around ISO 3200. Is the picture quality the best? No. Is there more noise than I would like? Yes. Do the pictures come out acceptable? Yes. Better to have a focused, non-blurry photo with some noise than a blurry photo without noise. Fortunately my D7000 performs pretty well at ISO 3200 so I have been able to get some good shots.

2)Besides having poor lighting in a lot of cases, their are many different types of lighting, often mixed types. This plays hell with the white balance. I usually just leave it in auto and correct the color in post processing. If you aren’t good with post processing (or just don’t want to be bothered) then you need to learn your camera’s white balance settings and how to adjust them. The nice thing is the players are playing on a sheet of white ice. If you don’t plan to post process adjust the white balance until the ice looks white in your photos and you’ll be good to go.

3)You can’t always shoot from the stands. Why? Rinks often have nets around the top of the glass to stop pucks from flying into the stands. It’s tough enough trying to watch through the netting, let alone shoot through it. That’s why I often watch games from the floor looking through the glass.

4)Another option is shooting through the glass. You are much closer to the action than being in the stands. But there are several issues here also. The first is trying to find some glass that isn’t all dinged up from flying pucks hitting it. If you’re lucky you can find a small area that is clear. Even then you are shooting through a thick piece if plexiglass, so you’re image quality will be degraded. But still, any image is better than no image, right? The key to shooting through the glass is to get as close to the glass as possible. And use the fastest lens you have. If you have any prime lenses they are ideal for this. I usually use my 35mm 1.8 or 50mm 1.8 lens through the glass. Make sure you have your lens hood on and put it right up against the glass. This will limit your field of vision but it will also stop any glare off the glass bouncing into your image. And please, if you are new to photography and haven’t shot like this a whole lot, please turn off your flash! I shake my head when I see people shooting through the glass with their on camera flash popped up. What do you think that flash burst is doing? It’s bouncing off the glass right back into your lens! Don’t be that person. Turn off you flash and turn up your ISO.

Lot’s of challenges, for sure. Here’s a few more tips:

1)Get as close as you can. When I shoot at my daughter’s home games I often try to shoot from the penalty box right next to the bench. Sure it’s colder than in the stands but you’re right on the ice. This means you don’t have to zoom as much. If I am shooting with my zoom I can often keep it closer to the 70mm end and an f/4 aperture, buying myself a stop of light. I often shoot with my primes being that close, affording me much faster shutter speeds at lower ISOs resulting in crisper pictures.

2)Don’t worry if you can’t zoom close enough. Get the shot and crop later. If you’ve got a newer camera you probably have enough megapixels on your sensor that you can crop it down after the fact and still get good image quality. If you’re new to photography and don’t do post processing become familiar with whatever program came with your computer (they all come with something) or download a simple free program like Picassa and learn the crop feature.

3)Lastly, if the lighting just totally sucks, there is netting all around and the glass is all dinged up forget shooting and enjoy the game! I’ll scope out any new rinks before the game starts and often just leave the camera in the car if conditions are that bad for photographing. Just make sure the camera is always with you - sometimes you walk into a rink and the lighting is nice and bright, there is no netting and good sight lines and conditions are ideal to capture some images of the coolest game on earth.